Most lottery players never see big payoffPrevious TopicNext Topic

"It's the same choice you make if you want to use alcoholic beverages - you don't have to do it"

No but they still are allowed to have advertisements on TV to entice you drink it. But yet adds for cigarettes were banned because the state does not control it and they don't think people should smoke!

You don't have to gamble either but yet I see commercials on TV telling you to do so!

Ban the lottery commercials as well! We don't need to see a ground hog on TV telling us to keep on scratching thinking we might win one of their bigger prizes if we do! What a bunch of hog wash!

Well, yes, that happens but all too often people caught in something like that were way too greedy.

Employees with stock options don't have much choice, but most of those investors were not employees. 

You never go in without a known low, "buy for $25, if it gets down to $18 SELL, if it goes up, SELL at $34", etc....

Even if you take a bath, there's "income averaging and losses in the market  - try "income averaging" lottery losses.

While it is true that putting $1 a week in the bank won't help you to retire, saying that deducting part of your income every week in a savings plan at work or an IRA (both use pre-tax dollars) and averaging 5% over 30 years is the same as playing the lottery is absurd.  I can't even think of a word for saying the lottery is a better way of investing your money than saving for retirement.  By law, a company can't tell you where to put your money. They need to offer you choices (think 3 is the minimum) So you don't have to buy their stock to be in the 401(k) plan.  That's illegal.

Suggesting that when you put money into a retirement plan at work you have no control over it, but you do have control when you buy a lottery ticket is just plain ridiculous.  How does anyone have control of a game where numbered balls at bounced around and are sucked through a tube? 

I was going to write much more, but I think anyone with common sense can figure these things out.  After all, just do the math.  Like Coin Toss wrote, even if you don't make a fortune, you still have your principal.  If it were up to me, I'd make every LP member a jackpot winner but I fear that so many will be quoting Bob Seger who laments "I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then."

Of course many people can't invest because they need every dime to feed & clothe their kids, but this discussion isn't about that subject.  Time*treat, you can bring up inflation all you want, but the fact is that the wealthiest segment of our society today started out making less than $150 a week.  The reason is that most people who were born 70 years ago had different values.

I 'Income average" by having my girl-friend buy some of the tickets with her money but I keep the winnings...

and by the way I am kidding!

When I started my 401(k) I was making about $500 a week and had 10% ($50) deducted from my paycheck, but the difference in my take home pay was less than $50 because my tax base was lowered to $450. The plan allowed me to invest in almost any stock in the three major stock markets plus a large number of mutual funds.

Money market funds were the safest investment but their yields were usually lower than the stocks offering dividends. I read an article by Warren Buffett that simply suggested researching the companies making a product or a business you liked. Ask anybody that bought Wal Mart in the 1980s how much their stock is now worth.

I never thought borrowing from a 401(k) was a good idea but instead of paying a lender 10% and the principle, the 10% and the principle went into your account.

It can be said the stock market is a form of gambling but you can't compare it to buying lottery tickets.

I figure there is chance I could win - After all I met my wife. Not sure what the odds are but - she was going to U of Iowa - home in Council Buffs IA for the week end.  I was in Air Force in Omaha.  I usually did not go to bars but that night I did.  I asked her to Dance at the HEET lounge in Omaha and she said yes!  And we have been married for 30 some years.  When I think of the hours of the year - the chances we both were there - that the lightening DID strike at our hearts.  Sure I will win!! (won $1 on Cash 5 just tonight!!)  

I also believe that if I am to win that spending more than $1 on a draw is a waste of money.

I figure there is chance I could win - After all I met my wife.

That's probably the best thing I've ever read here when discussing the odds of winning!

lol i love it

you can't win if you don't ever play the game.